Day Eight: The morning was like most other mornings, Ryan and I woke up first and then Jonathan. Once we were all ready we went upstairs to Cabanas to get breakfast. We enjoyed breakfast here the most because we could get a variety of things we liked, get Ryan cereal and it was casual enough that I didn’t feel bad if Ryan was being loud. We took our time enjoying our breakfast and getting ready this morning because we didn’t have anywhere to be early. We arrived in Cozumel and all ashore was at 8am; however, we didn’t have our dolphin excursion booked until 1:00 so we had plenty of time. We did make it off the ship a little after 10 and made our way to Chankanaab national park. Our taxi driver was nice enough and got us there without any problems. Jonathan was a bit freaked out because the car didn’t have a working speed odometer (which might explain why the trip back seemed to take longer, lol). Once we were there we showed them our reservation ticket and they told us to come back to the desk ten minutes before our reservation. The dolphin excursion includes entrance into the national park so we decided to walk around and enjoy it. I wanted to walk around the botanical garden and look at the iguanas, plants and flowers.
We did this for a few minutes but Jonathan was in a foul mood so we turned around and went to find a chair on the beach. We changed and Ryan and Jonathan got in the water. Jonathan was disappointed that the water didn’t get very deep in the lagoon and that there were no waves.
After a little while of this we decided we would just go play in the pool. The park has a fresh water pool right near the dolphin area so this was convenient. We played in the pool for awhile, had a snack and played some more. Ryan was enjoying swimming by himself with his puddle jumper.
Once it was time for our dolphin encounter we checked back in at the desk and they told us where the lockers where and to then sit on the benches for instructions. We put all our stuff away and waited and waited and waited. It was after 1:30pm before they finally came over to give us instructions. There was a large group of people waiting and unfortunately, all did not speak one language. So, the instructors had to give the instructions in both English and Spanish. This took awhile to get thru. Once they were finished they split us up into smaller groups and led us to the dolphin area. We were paired with another family of five and again, they spoke Spanish so everything had to be said twice. I hate saying this but honestly it was so annoying. I felt as though we missed out on a lot of interesting facts just because the instructor didn’t want to say it twice, plus it took a lot longer to go thru. We were let into the water and stood on a platform. The life jacket I was wearing kept me just to the point I couldn’t stand flat footed on the platform so it was very hard to keep my balance. But I was in the water with a dolphin so this was exciting. Ryan wanted me to hold him and I did my best but eventually had to give him to Jonathan because I couldn’t keep my balance enough for the both of us. The first dolphin we tried to swim with recently had a baby and was nursing the baby. It was very cute to see them swimming together; however, she didn’t want to do any tricks and ignored the instructor. They had us get out of the water and move to another enclosure with a different dolphin hoping he would be more cooperative. Thankfully he was! His name was John and he was great. Ryan still talks about him. He did tricks for us, swam close to us and then each person got to do a few tricks with him (dance, kiss, etc.). The interaction with the dolphin was a lot of fun. It lasted for about 45 minutes. Ryan loved it and smiled and laughed the whole time. It really was a neat experience.
Once we were done with our dolphin encounter we were led to the picture shop to look at our photos. We only bought one because they were $30 a picture. But I’m glad we got one since they don’t let you take your camera with you. We quickly changed and headed to get a taxi. We were tired and hungry and by now it was 3 pm. There are taxis waiting for you to leave so getting one was no problem. We got back to the port, tried to pay the taxi driver but he didn’t have change for a $20. The taxi was only $10 so he went to go see if he could get some change. After several minutes he did come back and gave Jonathan back a $10 bill. We usually tip but this guy didn’t get a tip since he didn’t bring us any small bills. Oh well, not a smart move on his part for not getting smaller bills. We walked back thru security, got a cold towel (love Disney!) and boarded the ship.
We were all very hungry so we dropped our stuff off in the room and headed to the grill to get something to eat. I believe we had a mixture of pizza, burgers, chicken fingers and fries. After our late lunch we went back to the room to clean up and relax. Tonight was Pirate night and it was going to be a late night. I had Ryan lay down to get some quiet time (even though I knew he wouldn’t sleep I thought him resting would help a little). Much sooner than we were ready for, it was dinner time. Jonathan and I had looked at the menus before our cruise and neither of us were looking forward to tonight’s menu, it just didn’t seem appealing. We were back in Royal Court so that was a plus.
Here are a few more pictures of the murals in Royal Court.
When we sat down Ryan noticed that the kids sitting at the table next to us had flashing color pirate cups and he had to have one. It was only $6 so we got him one. He loves using it at home! For a starter, I had the mozzarella sticks off the kid’s menu and then Mr. Smee’s bibb lettuce salad. Jonathan had the crab cakes and a jerk chicken salad, neither of which he was crazy about. For my entrée I had the marinated beef short ribs with mashed potatoes. I’m not sure if it was just that I wasn’t hungry or what but I didn’t really care for this dish, it was just ok. Jonathan had shrimp pasta that he thought was ok. I’m assuming Ryan had chicken tenders and mac n cheese but I can’t remember what he ate anymore and honestly he had that a lot so it’s probably a safe assumption. I know he had a Mickey bar for dessert and so did Jonathan. I had a sweet temptation of fruit cobbler, some type of meringue and a rum soaked chocolate cake with raspberry sauce. The chocolate cake and the fruit cobbler were pretty good. After dinner we walked around the shops a bit and bought Ryan a pirate sword.
Tonight was also the preimer for Finding Nemo 3D. We went to watch this but only stayed for the first 10 or 15 minutes. We’ve seen Nemo so many times. 3D effects are not something that I really see well, plus we were sitting in the balcony where the bar was hitting the screen so it was obstructing my view (driving me crazy). We went back to the room again for a little bit. I was worried that Ryan might fall asleep but he seemed to be just fine playing my Kindle. We didn’t stay in the room long though; we went up to the pool deck to begin the festives for the pirate party. We danced around for a little bit to the music, watched the Mickey pirate stage show and enjoyed ourselves. Ryan loved it! After a little while we moved spots to get a better view for the fireworks and waited and waited. They made an announcement that the Captain was trying to get us out into clear skies but there was a storm approaching and they weren’t sure if we were going to be able to see fireworks. About 20 minutes later, the show started! It wasn’t a long fireworks show and honestly, it wasn’t anything spectacular but there is something about fireworks out at sea that is so cool! And we all love fireworks anyway so we really enjoyed this. Right after the fireworks, they have a large buffet at Cabanas. We quickly went in there to get something to eat. We filled our plates with tacos, desserts and other goodies and then headed back to our room. It was really late and we needed to get Ryan to bed. Once back in the room, it was bath and to bed for Ryan (after a few bites off my plate to sample). Jonathan and I enjoyed our buffet items (it was a nice change to have tacos). Jonathan even got a turkey leg but didn’t get the thrill of eating it and actually found it gross. With full bellies we went to bed right before midnight, definitely our latest night but staying up for pirate night was worth it.
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